Indianapolis Star, December 11, 2008, Thursday

Indianapolis Star

December 11, 2008, Thursday

Indianapolis Star

Hog plant votes on union
Experts say the results will show whether employees feel secure

By Emery P. Dalesio / Associated Press

A TAR HEEL, N.C. -- Employees at Smithfield Packing Co.'s massive North Carolina hog slaughterhouse on Wednesday began two days of voting that will decide whether unions will get a rare boost in the country's least-unionized state.

The decision on whether to call in the United Food and Commercial Workers is colored by the rising specter of layoffs amid national economic gloom.


But most important in the decision by about 4,600 workers expected to be announced late today will be how secure Smithfield workers feel about their jobs, said Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University and a former union organizer.

"They look at the things that are happening right there in their town or in their workplace," said Bronfenbrenner, who studies factors contributing to union success or failure in organizing. "Has the union focused on the issues that resonate with them? Do they believe this union is theirs?"

The UFCW has maintained an office presence near the plant for well over a year as it tried to build trust with workers. It has brought in Spanish-speaking organizers to meet with the plant's growing Hispanic work force. That contrasts with the union's 1994 and 1997 unionizing campaigns, when mobilizers rushed in a few months ahead of the vote.

A federal court ruled in 2006 that Smithfield's bad conduct during those two elections unfairly skewed the votes the union lost.

Bronfenbrenner thinks the past month may have marked a turning point in America's mood. A recession was officially declared, and signs mounted that the coming months or years could be the hardest times since the Great Depression.

"This is a time workers are feeling, 'Maybe this is our time, and maybe employers aren't so invincible,' " she said.

Jeffrey Hirsch, a University of Tennessee labor law professor who formerly worked for the National Labor Relations Board, agrees that bad economic times are often good times for unions.

"It's an irony perhaps that unions can get a bump in PR and show their relevance when times are bad," he said.

Others think rising job fears will lead Smithfield workers to recognize they earn a paycheck because, decades ago, companies began leaving union-friendly states for places such as North Carolina. Only about 3 percent of North Carolina workers were in a union in 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while the national average was 12.1 percent.